


larger than life

by Verbyna



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Addiction, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Original Character(s), Parson family, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, The Making of Kent "Victory" Parson, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6025189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/pseuds/Verbyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Everything feels like the end of the world when it happens. No one can see the future, so it’s hard to believe it exists.”</p><p>Kent's dad wasn’t always right, but he was right about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	larger than life

**Author's Note:**

> Semi-spoilery warnings in the end notes, related to the Grief/Mourning tag. Please read them if you think you might be triggered.
> 
> Big thanks to spockothy for the beta! <3

i.

Kent came out to his dad when he was a freshman in high school. It went fine; he knew it would, never doubted it for a second. He thought that would be the end of it.

His father sat him down in the office after practice a week later. It took him two hours, but he convinced Kent that hockey was not the end of the line. It couldn’t be, if he was gay. It couldn’t be, because everyone deserved to live as themselves. It would just take him longer than others.

He had his family’s full support, of course. It was strongly implied that he was expected to excel in this, as in everything else. But one day he would retire, and his real life as Kent Victor Parson would begin: not Kenny, and certainly not Parse.

“Do what you need to do, and be the best at it,” Victor Parson IV said, “but don’t forget that it’s a compromise.”

 

ii.

Kent remembered his mother’s perfume, Whitney’s favorite, and her brown eyes, same as Chelsea’s. He remembered pearls and the crack of a tennis racquet. Ambulance lights flashing on the ceiling.

He took Zimms to see her grave the summer he was seventeen.

 _Hi, mom,_ he thought, as he and Zimms reached her headstone. _I brought a friend._ But he couldn’t lie to her, even in his own head, so instead he just thought about the way Zimms made him feel. He hoped she’d understand. Kent hadn’t meant for it to happen. He hadn’t meant to put himself through that again. She’d written a letter, asked him not to, but Kent couldn’t help himself. He took after his father in all the ways that mattered.

Zimms was standing really close. It was an accident; he’d stopped there because he hadn’t known where the tomb was. Kent leaned into him as if it meant something anyway. He wanted to grab Zimms’ hand, but he reached for his hip flask instead.

He turned to watch Zimms’ face as he read first her age, then her full name. Everything that made Kent who he was, if you knew how to read between the lines.

“Christ,” Zimms said. He cleared his throat, shook his head. “She was--” _young,_ Kent thought, but Jack was looking at the name.

Kent poured a little gin on the grass for her, then took a swig. He passed the flask to Zimms and kneeled down to take the old flowers out of the stone vase and replace them with the lilies he’d brought. When he was done, he tossed the dry ones on the other side of the stone and sat down, leaning against it. His bare calves twitched when they hit the wet patch.

“Do you want to, um. Tell me about her? Or…”

Kent surprised himself by laughing. He tilted his face into the sunlight, then patted the grass next to him. “Sit down, drink with me. It’s a good spot. Quiet.”

They drank the rest of the gin and didn’t say a word. And Kent, god help him, fell a bit for Zimms that day. The last bit, right there in New York City where he belonged, for better or for worse.

They never went back.

 

iii.

Zimms’ parents came to visit Jack in Rimouski for a week, and on the third day, they called Kent at his billet family’s house and asked to meet for breakfast at their hotel. They didn’t need to tell him to keep it quiet; what Zimms didn’t know couldn’t keep him up at night.

Bob and Alicia had a way of making Kent feel both welcome and alien. It was worse when they met his dad and his sisters, who didn’t know how to act like normal people, but even when it was just the three of them, they acted a little off, like they were putting on an act for him.

Bob ate mechanically, elbows off the table, making sure his mouth was always full so he couldn’t talk. Kent knew Bob wouldn’t say anything, but still wished he would show a little crack in that polite mask. Something to show he cared as much as Kent knew he did.

It was a long meal.

“How is he, Kenny?” Alicia asked, when she couldn’t put it off anymore.

Kent took a sip of orange juice and considered how much he should tell them. The truth was ugly, and simple, and a secret that he tried not to look at too closely.

Should he tell them about Zimms’ incoherent calls in the middle of the night? About the panic attack that almost kept him off the ice on their last away game? About the glassy look in his eyes that only really went away when he was drinking, how he couldn’t skip his meds but stole Kent’s glass at every party? About the way he was crying in his room last night, silently, like he wasn’t all there in his own body?

If he told them everything, he wouldn’t be able to keep the ending off his face. He knew this story. He didn’t even want to be in it, let alone tell these nice people who loved their son that they couldn’t help him until he was ready to be helped. And time was running out. That was the part they knew, or else they wouldn’t be there with Kent.

“Same as always,” Kent said.

He hadn’t expected Bob to heave a sigh and sort of -- crumble at that, put his head in his hands like he was removing himself from the situation. It was enough that one person was falling apart; their job was to stay strong, to be something solid.

“Pull yourself together,” he heard himself spit, the way most people said _fuck that_. He sounded so angry, but he didn’t think it was anger. It was like he was recoiling from whatever would happen if Bob didn’t get a grip. Like he saw the future for a split second and everything in him shouted NO at the same time.

Alicia shot him an incredulous look. He’d never be _Kenny_ again, but he could live with that if it meant she took him seriously. Which she did, because she ignored Bob and leaned back in her chair to study Kent.

“I don’t know what you are to Jack.” She waited for Kent to fill in the information. When he said nothing, she sighed and glanced briefly at Bob, who had taken Kent’s suggestion and straightened up. “Whatever it is, you’re here. Every day, you’re with Jack, and that counts for something. He can be so--” Another pause that Kent couldn’t, and wouldn’t, fill. “I want you to promise me something, all right?”

“I’m listening.”

Bob gave Kent a hard look that couldn’t quite hide his embarrassment. For everyone’s sake, Kent hoped it wasn’t embarrassment on Zimms’ behalf. 

“Promise us you’ll have his back,” he said, low and meaningful - the guy who spent his life making people bleed on his teammates’ behalf. Kent knew exactly where he was coming from.

“I _do._ I already do.”

“No,” Alicia said. “Not as a teammate. As a friend. Teams come and go, we all know how it goes. Be his friend instead. Look out for him.”

 _Friend,_ she said. Kent heard what she wasn’t saying and shifted uncomfortably. Hockey wasn’t his forever, but he was sitting across from _Bob Zimmermann._ Zimms deserved to have everything his dad did - a long career on and off the ice and a family to support him. He needed Kent to get him there.

He promised. Of course he did.

He wondered, on the drive back, if his father had ever made the same promise to his mom’s family. He guessed not, because otherwise, she wouldn’t have stayed home like she wanted when things got really bad.

 

iv.

Whitney married Tucker that winter, four months pregnant and apparently pleased with how everything was turning out. Kent didn’t get how anyone could be happy to tie themselves to that workaholic gym rat, but they’d been dating since high school and she’d moved to Boston for pre-law with him, so who the fuck knew what the guy was like in private.

“She’s only twenty,” Chelsea told Kent the night before the wedding. She looked shaken, but she was the baby of the family. Kent felt ancient next to her, even if Whitney was way ahead of him on milestones.

He put an arm around Chelsea’s shoulders and passed her the flask.

“Mom was nineteen when she had her, Cricket. By the time she was twenty-three she had three kids. Sometimes you meet the right person when you’re young.”

“Yeah, well. She was dead by twenty-seven, and I don’t hear you saying that was fine.”

 _You didn’t know her,_ Kent doesn’t say. He watches Chelsea instead, her blond hair messy and her eyes angry, fixed on the coffee table in front of them, like she heard it anyway.

“That was different,” he says. “She’d be proud of Whitney, okay? And so should you.”

“But I barely know her,” Chelsea said. “You’re never here, and I miss you, but I won’t miss her. I already don’t.”

Kent tightened his arm helplessly. “Jesus. I always miss you too, Cricket. You - you know why I have to go, right?”

“Yeah. You’re in love with a junkie. You’re gonna be a _star._ Take your pick.”

Kent considered denying the first part, but in the end he just took the flask back. She’d never use it against him; she’d never been anything but supportive when it counted, even if she thought he was kind of stupid. She wasn’t wrong about that.

They stayed up late. All they talked about was school, about the year she skipped and the classes he almost failed. They fell asleep on the couch, but Kent had set an alarm, so they weren’t late in the morning.

A lot of people cried at the wedding. Kent and Chlesea rolled their eyes at each other a couple of times, and when they left the church, Whitney narrowed her eyes at them like she was practicing being a parent. They were laughing about it in the pictures. They’d already said goodbye while everyone else was busy congratulating Whitney.

When Kent showed the pictures to Zimms in Rimouski, he finally got why his mom looked happy in all the photos they had of her.

Anything can look like happiness from the outside.

 

v.

Zimms got better for a while, then worse, then better again. He went from semi-functional human to a complete wreck in stages, but when he snapped back it was always sudden. He’d wake up one day and it was like the past weeks never happened, and god help them if he ever brought up anything that happened when Zimms was out of control.

He only made that mistake once. Zimms got so drunk that he passed out halfway through his excuses. Kent dragged him into the bathroom and stuck his fingers down Zimms’ throat. Kept him out of the hospital, if nothing else. Zimms didn’t remember it the next day, and he trusted Kent to deliver on the ice, so that’s what Kent did.

He called Alicia every Sunday night, told her whether Zimms was better or worse that week. She always asked him to count Zimms’ pills, which he hated doing, because then he’d have to lie to her. It wasn’t her fault she was three hundred miles away and her son was a mess she couldn’t do anything about. He’d still be a mess if he lived in Montreal.

Despite everything, or because of it, Kent would’ve given almost anything for Zimms to kiss him. Anything short of a shot at the NHL for one fucking kiss, a sign that he wasn’t losing his mind too. Sometimes, when they woke up in the same bed, Zimms would tilt his head up, bleary and gross from sleep, and Kent thought _yes_ and _now_ and _please,_ but Zimms would just turn away. Pretended he’d been stretching: no harm, no foul.

They played such beautiful hockey, though. It was enough most of the time. It didn’t feel like a compromise.

 

vi.

The report came in that they were projected to be the first and second draft picks that year.

“I’m not coming back to Canada,” Zimms said, like he’d just realized that completely obvious fact.

Kent swallowed a couple of times and said, “I’m going back to NYC.”

“You don’t think you’ll be first?”

“Are you kidding? Vegas needs you, their forwards can’t fucking hit. What would they even do with me?”

“Pass the puck and get out of your way,” Zimms said. He was completely serious, like it was a done deal that Kent could carry the Aces on his fucking back. Kent just stared at him until Jack started squirming.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Kent asked, playing dumb.

“Like _that._ What, am I wrong? Everyone knows you have the best hands in the Q. You’re fast, you play clean. The Aces could really use the points.”

“My sisters would flip if I went to Vegas, though.”

“Do you care?” Zimms asked, still so damn serious. He wasn’t good at listening most of the time, too caught up in his own head, but when he did, it was worse than the therapist Kent went to when he was a kid.

Kent pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a moment. He felt the mattress shift when Zimms leaned back against the wall, and when Kent opened his eyes again, he couldn’t see him anymore.

It made it easier to answer. “I care, but I can live with it. We have our own lives.”

“Maybe we’re just selfish.”

It wasn’t funny like ha-ha, but Kent felt like laughing anyway. “We must bloom where we’re planted,” he said instead.

“What?”

“Just something my mom used to say.”

Zimms put his hand tentatively on Kent’s back, like he wasn’t sure if he needed comforting. “You remember that?”

Kent shivered and said, “She wrote it down.”

If Zimms had asked about it right then, Kent would’ve told him about the letter his father passed along when Kent turned fourteen. Small mercies: even if Kent couldn’t refuse Zimms anything he asked for, any twisted little part of his past or his future, Zimms could barely carry what he already had. He wouldn’t burden himself with Kent’s shit on top of that.

 

vii.

The month before the draft wasn’t perfect, but it was so good he couldn’t believe it was real. It was impossible to imagine life ever going back to normal.

Kent didn’t know it at the time, but he’d only get that feeling again a couple of times. His first NHL goal; his first time skating out with a C on his jersey; holding up the Stanley Cup for the crowd in Vegas. The first time he had sex that meant the same for him and the other person.

Kent wanted to take a picture of Zimms right after he’d been kissed senseless, flushed and breathing hard, reaching for Kent to do it all over again. They never wanted to stop, didn’t want to think. They got high off each other, got high on Zimms’ pills together and made out for hours, all the way until their alarms rang in the morning.

Kent didn’t try to call when Zimms went to his parents’ house in Montreal a day ahead of schedule. He needed time to process. He needed to come back to the real world, where he could only have Jack on the ice, and even that was over for the next few years.

He told himself that they’d play together again eventually. There were a lot of pictures of the top prospects, but Kent had forgotten to take the one he really wanted.

 

viii.

He always thought that hearts are the last thing to go when someone dies.

Zimms’ heart stopped for a minute in the ambulance, Alicia told him later, but his brain hung in there - no permanent damage.

Kent finally cried when he heard that.

Didn’t anyone realize the damage _was_ permanent, and old, and part of Zimms? Didn’t anyone know that getting better was the scariest thing in the world? It was like--like death, like letting someone kill you to save you. You came out the other side a different person.

His mother’s letter said, _I can’t haunt myself anymore._ Kent had puzzled over that for years. Now that Zimms was slipping between his fingers, it made perfect, horrible sense.

 

ix.

He only had to carry the Aces for the first two seasons. When he became captain, he learned to trust them. He didn’t really have a choice. Zimms had taught him how to be a captain, so Kent took the Cup to Zimms’ - to _Jack’s_ \- college. It was supposed to be a thank you, but he never got to explain that.

It wasn’t the best decision he ever made, and it wasn’t the worst. That came later. At the time, though, it felt like the end of the world. (“Everything,” his father told him, “feels like the end of the world when it happens. No one can see the future, so it’s hard to believe it exists.” He wasn’t always right, but he was right about that.)

Kent did what he needed to do. He made sure he was the best at it. He figured out where he needed to go, eventually, and he got there. He kept going after that.

When they told stories about him, most of them were true.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This story deals with the loss of a parent; the death is implied to be an accidental overdose on prescription medication. It happens offscreen before the action begins, but it's referenced throughout, and it informs one character's attitude towards Jack's mental health issues. Be safe, friends!


End file.
